Wednesday, February 20, 2013

So, as most of you probably know, Barack Obama would like to see the minimum wage increase. He says he wants to help the poor, since someone raising a family on minimum wage is below the poverty line. Of course they are. And increasing the minimum wage will absolutely not help them.
If you want to help the working poor, reducing the minimum wage would be a better step. Sure, it sounds good to give them more money, but that will only force companies to cut labor or increase costs, either increasing unemployment or the cost of living, putting even more people below the poverty line.
If minimum wage were lower, the kid working after school could make less money, freeing companies to pay more for their full-time employees, as well as allowing them to lower prices.
Simple economics seem to be a tad out of the realm of a lot of our elected officials, but it still surprises me every time.